


just before you lose it all

by skyekingsleigh



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Parabatai Bond, jace just wants everything to stop already, please dont hurt his parabatai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 19:05:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17668397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyekingsleigh/pseuds/skyekingsleigh
Summary: “Your boy is crying, you know? He’s begging me, begging me not to do this.”





	just before you lose it all

**Author's Note:**

> My take on the whole owl vs alec scene from 3x10 (?). I didnt rewatch so every canon dialogue is from my memory so i apologize in advance for the inaccuracies lol.

Jace Herondale had always known pain. He’d encountered it so many times in the past now that it had become familiar territory. The ache in his bones and muscles that used to rattle him when he was younger comforted him now, the heaviness of being alone a welcome ache. Unlike other Nephilims who were taught they had to suppress their emotions, Jace uses his. He gets his strength from his anger and the feeling of abandonment made him train harder and harder every single day until he knew for sure that he was the very best. He had been a young boy and he learned how to kill demons before he learned how to ride a bike. That’s just the way it’s always been, and he didn’t even entertain the idea that one day that might change. But of course he had to meet Alec Lightwood.

When he first learned that a family—his father’s parabatai’s family in fact—were to take him in, Jace had been indifferent to say the least. He was lost and ready to feel like an outsider, an orphan. That’s why the minute he stepped off the portal, he titled his chin and held his head up high, a determined look gracing his face. Maryse and Robert Lightwood welcomed him with open arms and warm smiles but he didn’t utter a word. He refused to let anyone carry his things for him and proceeded to his room, already hating every second of the ordeal. He met the girl, Izzy, first, and he decided she was nice enough. But the moment Maryse and Robert finally left him alone, he turned to her and spoke for the first time. “Where’s the training room?”

“It’s occupied at the moment,” Izzy told him but gave him directions nonetheless. “Go. My brother could use a friend.”

_Or a better aim_ , he told himself when he watched the eldest Lightwood son miss the target once again. Jace had been standing in the corner watching for quite a while, intrigued by the boy who never seemed to give up. How was he expecting a better outcome when he wasn’t changing his technique and style? It was only when an arrow almost stabbed him in the eye that he decided to intervene. “Woah,” he held up his arms as if in surrender.

“Who are you?” The brunette boy’s voice resonated against the now silent training room, and Jace barely had the time to answer before he was aiming at him again. 

He still didn’t drop his arms, but he wasn’t nervous. The boy could barely hit the target, there’s less chance he was going to hit Jace. “Relax, we’re on the same side.” He carefully approached him and watched as the boy relaxed only slightly. “I’m Jace.”

“Alec.”

-

“Alec!” Jace cried out, trapped, helpless as he watched his own body break his parabatai’s arm. Alec’s scream of pain haunted him, but he _couldn’t. do. anything_. Nothing. All he could do was cry and beg and cry again. The owl kicked and punched until Alec laid flat on the ground, heaving and in pain. He could see his own hands grip the arrow, and he knew what the owl was about to do before he does it. 

“Please, _please_ no. Please don’t do this.” His chest was constricting as he curled up into himself, rocking back and forth because what else could he do but mourn for what’s about to happen? “Not him, _please not him._ Don’t do this.”

It was his voice that rang out but it wasn’t _him_. “Your boy is crying, you know?” The owl started advancing on Alec and Jace whimpered and cried louder, begged harder. “He’s begging me; begging me not to do this.”

His body straddled Alec’s helpless form, pointing the arrow at his chest where just one push and it’ll all be over. 

“Jace,” his parabatai panted out, a look of sadness and defeat and regret in his eyes. “I know you’re in there. It’s okay—“ 

“No!” he cried but no one could hear a damn thing. No amount of crying and begging and trying to kill himself will make it go away. “Please, Alec, no...” 

“—It wasn’t you,” Alec continued, swallowing harshly while struggling to stop The Owl from killing him completely. “I’m sorry we couldn’t save you.” 

“No...” he whispered now, voice scratchy and tired and hopeless. His hand clutched his parabatai rune, willing it to stay there, willing it to be strong enough and break him the fuck out of his own damn mind. “Alec. Please don’t leave me. I’m so sorry.” 

The owl only managed to smirk, an expression Jace had done countless of times before now tainted with a darkness he couldn’t erase if he tried. “They say that the worst pain a shadowhunter can feel is losing his parabatai.” 

And then he stabbed. 

Jace Herondale had always known pain. He had learned to embrace is through the years, weaponize it, even. But no amount of it would compare to the pain he felt when he saw and felt his own hands push that arrow through his parabatai’s chest. 

He could feel him slipping; could feel the entanglements of their soul detangling one sliver by sliver. And he didn’t know how to make it stop. He just wanted it to _stop_ , because Jace Herondale cannot possibly live in a world without Alec Lightwood. 

And then it was over. Magnus blasted him and he was back in control, crawling to get to his soulmate, his parabatai, and he could finally _breathe_ because Alec’s alive, hurt but alive and he’s giving him a look that tells him to finish the fight once and for all because he’s not going anywhere, because _for whither thou goest, I will go_ , and Jace finally understood just how much he‘d give just to see Alec Lightwood alive and breathing and _right there._

“Go,” Alec tells him, giving him a small pained smile and Jace grips his hand just a little bit tighter. Magnus is reassuring him that he’ll take care of Alec but Jace had his focus solely on his soulmate. _Go_ , because they both knew it was only a matter of time before they come back to each other again. 


End file.
